Army moves in as Beirut embraces Macron

The army turned teargas on the people as Emmanuel Macron is mobbed in the street.

Troops move in on a protest near parliament in Beirut on Friday. Picture: Reuters

Lebanon’s leadership faced growing rage after a massive explosion laid waste to large parts of central Beirut, with security forces firing tear gas at demonstrations late on Thursday as international leaders called for reform.

State media reported on Friday that security forces fired tear gas in central Beirut to disperse dozens of anti-government demonstrators enraged by the blast.

Some in the protest were wounded, the National News Agency reported.

A few hours earlier French President Emmanuel Macron was mobbed by appreciative Beirut residents in the heart of bomb-ravaged Gemmayzeh — an area populated by Francophile Christian Lebanese — as he promised that French aid would not be channelled through the Lebanese political system.

Mr Macron was the first leader to reach out to the grieving people of Lebanon, devastated at the loss of life which has now reached 157 with 5000 injured and vast residential areas of Beirut ravaged.

He called for “political change’’ noting that ‘’this explosion should be the start of a new era” and demanded an immediate audit of the Lebanon central bank otherwise the country “would sink’’. “If there is no audit of the central bank, in a few months there will be no more imports and then there will be lack of fuel and of food,” Mr Macron said.

No Lebanese politician has been out in public since the explosion of 2750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate at the warehouse port on Tuesday and their public utterances, promising investigations and accountability for those who failed to heed safety warnings, have been widely dismissed by a disbelieving public.

Emmanuel Macron cops a hug in Beirut’s Gemmayzeh neighborhood on Thursday. Picture: AFP

France was a colonial ruler of Lebanon until the end of World War II and Mr Macron’s appearance has been viewed as welcome intervention by the international community to hold Lebanese warlords to account. A few commentators suggested the walkabout was an imperialist gesture, but on the streets there was nothing but an enthusiastic and desperate welcome for him.

People have been out on the streets for eight months furious at ruling class they held responsible for a political deadlock fuelled by a currency devaluation that has put them on the poverty line. The crowd chanted for the fall of the government and people held signs saying “revolution’’.

In response to the bystanders who screamed out to him “Do not give money to our government, we don’t trust them”, Mr Macron pushed aside his bodyguards to hug one woman and said simply “I know’’.

Mr Macron later confirmed France wouldn’t give “blank cheques to a government that doesn’t have the trust of its own people’’ and said he would call for a “new political initiative’’.

Only a fortnight ago Lebanon’s Prime Minister Hassan Diab rejected France’s offer of financial assistance in exchange for political reform to help the country overcome escalating levels of poverty and hardship. But on Thursday Mr Diab and the President Michael Aoun met with Mr Macron only minutes after the French president had publicly insisted Lebanon had “to change the system, to stop the division of Lebanon, to fight against corruption”.

Mr Macron stressed he was not in the country to endorse the regime and did not want French aid to end up in corrupt hands. He said he would be back on September 1 to ensure French aid was being distributed to the people.